My Tired Father

8 year-old Daria thinks she hears a mouse in the middle of the night. But when she wakes up her father for help, bigger family problems come to light.

Film notes

The initial story of My Tired Father reminded me of a sunny Sunday morning, back in August 1985, when I was 7. My father, brother and I were having breakfast, while my mom was smoking on the balcony. We saw her chasing an insect flying around and it seemed natural, but gradually turned into grotesque. We started laughing, my mother started screaming - a wasp viciously slipped under her dress. My dad killed the wasp, while my mom kept on yelling. I had never seen her like this before. She was accusing my dad of the wasp’s sting – first about the fact he’d done nothing to protect her, then about the things he never did in their common life, and last but not least about all the particularly bad things he did. My father grabbed a kitchen knife and took the wasp’s sting out with its edge (he’s a doctor), not answering my mom’s accusations. He was trying to make the situation a bit funnier for us, as my brother and I were in shock. This ridiculous event has put the beginning of the end of my childhood. Back in this morning I’ve got aware (for the first time in my life) of the fact something’s wrong in our family and it felt as the end of the world.

There are stories which, despite the dramatic events depicted, remain at the surface of things. And there are stories which, despite the apparently ridiculous events described, go deeper, sometimes touching the essence of human condition, They become transcendental. According to the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein, transcendental is something that cannot be said, but can be shown. I hope we’ve managed to do that with My Tired Father.